


they call this battle fatigue

by alesford



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, F/F, Family Feels, Introspection, Referenced Major Character Death, Spoilers up to 3x05, as of 3x05, brief character studies, everybody needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 06:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15723453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesford/pseuds/alesford
Summary: They're all so tired. This battle fatigue or operational exhaustion or whatever you want to call it these days. It’s the same thing, right? Or at least the same end result? Anguish, suffering, nightmares, loneliness.Hurt.Character introspection.Post-3x05.





	they call this battle fatigue

 

 

**they call this battle fatigue**

 

 

-

 

 

**jeremy.**

 

_‘Pack up your science shit, Chetri. You don’t get to be a part of this anymore.’_

 

_‘It’s easier to blame me than the dead dragon, right?’_

 

They call this shell shock. Battle fatigue. Post-traumatic stress disorder.

 

He’s seen it before. In other Black Badge agents. In Dolls. In himself.

 

There isn’t anything quite like survivor’s guilt, he knows. Or surviving a car crash that kills everybody in your family but you. There’s more blame to go around than you know what to do with, so most of it is turned inward. Of course, it manifests outwardly in different ways.

 

Hostility. Depression. Pain turned outward inasmuch as it is turned upon oneself. Physically, mentally, emotionally. It’s a vicious cycle that’s hard to break.

 

He should know.

 

Maybe it isn’t exactly battle fatigue, but they are fighting a war and lately, it feels like they’re on the losing side. The bombardment of one thing after the next is getting to them all.

 

They’re all hurting. They all have their scars.

 

Even him. Especially him, maybe. Because he knew. He knew and he couldn’t save Dolls no matter how hard he tried. And then he stayed away while Jolene ripped his family apart because he was too afraid to think that maybe he doesn’t belong here after all.

 

Jeremy is tired. And maybe the toll of this war has revealed to him and everybody else that he doesn’t quite fit right. That he won’t ever and that it isn’t a redeeming quality anymore not to fit.

 

The thought hurts.

 

-

 

**doc.**

 

There was not a word back then. A word to describe the tremor in his hands, the fear that closes his throat and makes it hard to breathe. The nightmares that startled him awake with fire still singeing the hairs of his neck and the smell of brimstone and blood still burning his nose. The _hurt_ that encourages such reckless behavior as taunting the demon Clootie and worse, listening to him in the first place.

 

Jeremy refers to his ailment as _post-traumatic stress disorder._ Battle fatigue, he said it was called mid-century and shell shock during the time before that. He used the Wikipedia and another website on the World Wide Web called _WebMD._

 

What he read was nothing new. He knows a man is changed by certain encounters. Death is never cheap, after all. But hurt sharpens the tongue. It brings out the worst of man to the fore and makes him do and say that which he will surely regret come next sunrise.

 

He remembers his words. Dismissive and terrible words spat at the one person who believed in him first. The first person to think him good and honest since the early days of his rides with Wyatt Earp.

 

He is _tired,_ and as sure as he is now that he would burn for an eternity to protect those girls, he is so very exhausted from these battles. He is so very tired of hurting the ones he loves. Wyatt, Kate, Waverly, Wynonna. Nicole, Jeremy.

 

Dolls.

 

He is tired but he will not rest until Bulshar is in the ground with that harlot Jolene who tried to destroy the one good thing he seems to have found in this lifetime.

 

Do not mess with a man’s family.

 

-

 

**wynonna.**

 

_‘Half-sister.’_

 

Half-sister. Low fucking blow, Wynonna.

 

Agitation, irritability, mistrust. The self-destructive behavior is par for the course with a name like Earp, but damn it all to hell when she takes it out on her baby sister. Her _sister_ who means more to her than anybody or anything else in the world.

 

Yeah. Sure. Battle fatigue.

 

She’s had enough damn trauma in her life to make any shrink into a millionaire with all the therapy she needs.

 

Half-sister. Damn it, Earp.

 

Except it wasn’t all Jolene’s delicious, tripping brownies. She knows it wasn’t. Because the thoughts were there, buried deep and only pried to the surface by the psychotic bitch.

 

Sometimes it sucks to try to separate the lies from the truth. She’s got years of experience with the former, and everybody who’s got a brain knows that the best lie always has a morsel of truth. That’s how you hurt them the most.

 

She’s _tired._

 

Tired of being the screw-up. Of screwing up everybody else’s lives. She dragged Waverly into this shitshow — never mind her pre-existing murder wall and weird love of dead languages that only show up in grimoires and other creepy books that Wynonna doesn’t understand. First Waverly and then Nicole. And now Dolls is dead and what’s left?

 

Guilt. Pain. Sadness.

 

Just one more strike against the good ol’ name of Wynonna Earp.

 

Fuck, she’s tired.

 

-

**nicole.**

 

She said things and did things. She doesn’t know what was real and what was—

 

Was it all Jolene? Was it all her?

 

The things she said weren’t all that wrong and she knows it and Waverly knows it; she can’t take those things back. She shouldn’t. Not if they want to keep moving forward.

 

It wasn’t the words that hurt.

 

(Hurt them both.)

 

It’s how they were said. Harsh and scathing and with a physicality that Nicole has never embodied before with Waverly. Not like that. Not in a way that meant to shut her down and shut her out. In a way to make her feel broken and alone.

 

She’s tired of others getting hurt. She’s tired of seeing her own self-doubt reflected in Waverly’s eyes just because she’s said _goodbye_ more than once.

 

Nicole knows. She knows she was ready to throw in the towel on that cliffside where Dolls died protecting them all. She also knows that it hasn’t been the first time that she’s been willing to let go.

 

Willing to let go for Wynonna. For Waverly. For this found family that has accepted her and loved her.

 

Nicole isn’t tired of the fight. It isn’t battle fatigue. Not yet. Survivor’s guilt, maybe. Nightmares, sure. She’s okay, though. She can keep fighting. She wants to keep fighting. For her family.

 

Still. Sometimes there’s a difference between letting go and giving up. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do to save the people you love.

 

But damn it if she isn’t frigging tired of people making Waverly cry. Herself included.

 

Step one: balloons and flowers and stuffed animals. Step two: Apologize and _talk._ Step three? Whatever Waverly wants and needs.

 

-

 

**waverly.**

 

Waverly is _tired._

 

She is tired of hurting. Of watching others hurt. Because of this knob-gobbling curse. Because of her.

 

She’s tired of her friends, her _family_ , giving up and giving in. Waverly is _tired._

 

Because she’s seen it in Jeremy’s eyes. In Doc’s and Wynonna’s.

 

In Nicole’s.

 

This battle fatigue or operational exhaustion or whatever you want to call it these days. It’s the same thing, right? Or at least the same end result?

 

Anguish, suffering, nightmares, loneliness. _Hurt._

 

She’s tired of raising more questions and more distress with her very existence. She’s tired and Jolene knew that. The demon bitch stripped her of her confidence, made her believe that she was alone and unwanted and unloved.

 

And it made her realize something.

 

She’s _tired_ of feeling tired.

 

The self-doubt, the questioning, the accompanying depression and anxiety — it’s there and it’s a fackin’ _liar._ And that realization isn’t enough to disperse those thoughts and those doubts. It doesn’t wipe the slate clean. But it does mean something.

 

The war isn’t lost.

 

Because Waverly remembers. She knows.

 

Families fight; it doesn’t mean they stop loving each other. Waverly is loved. She has something to give them in return.

 

She’s here. She is here. She stays. She loves them back and never, never, never gives up on them.

 

It’s time to wake up now.

 

-

 

 _i'm running from nothing, no thoughts in my mind_  
_oh my heart was all black_  
_but I saw something shine_  
_thought that part was yours, but it might just be mine_  
_i could share it with you, if you gave me the time_  
_i'm all bloody knuckles, longing for home_  
_if it weren't for second chances, we'd all be alone_  
_\- 'second chances' by gregory alan isakov_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I imagine it's safe to say that "Jolene" affected us all, perhaps a bit more strongly than other episodes of this season or even this show. And I suppose that's saying something. I had a lot of feels -- a lot of angsty feels -- and I'm not sure if writing this was as cathartic as I had hoped it would be. I have an 'our family of choice au' idea churning in my head from this. So we'll see.
> 
> Anyways, as always, thank you for reading. Comments and kudos are always appreciated but never demanded.


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